Schoop, Weichman Receive Biden Administration PECASE Awards
The Biden Administration announced the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for nearly 400 individuals this week, including Princeton Chemistry Professor Leslie Schoop and Assistant Professor Marissa Weichman.
The PECASE is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on early-career scientists.
The federally funded award recognizes innovative and far-reaching developments in science and technology, expands awareness of careers in science and engineering, recognizes the scientific missions of participating agencies, and highlights the importance of science and technology for the nation’s future.
Both professors’ belated PECASE Awards are indicated for the year 2022 in acknowledgment of a backlog in the awards process. Schoop and Weichman were selected based on research funded through one of 14 agencies that are part of the PECASE program: in their case, the Department of Defense.
Kelsey Hatzell, an associated faculty with the Department of Chemistry and associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, was also awarded a PECASE.
“This is very exciting,” said Schoop, a solid-state chemist whose work has garnered a number of high-profile awards in recent years including a Packard Fellowship and a Sloan Fellowship. “I’m very, very happy to have gotten this award. It is a big honor, and it is so nice to have been recognized in this way.
“As with every award, this has been a team effort and I was only able to achieve this with my amazing students and postdocs.”
Schoop works at the interface between chemistry and physics, using chemical principles to find new materials with exotic physical properties. Schoop came to the Department in September of 2017. Today, she is also the director of the Princeton Center for Complex Materials.
Weichman, a physical chemist, has also received the Packard Award, as well as an early-career award through the Department of Energy. Her lab uses fundamental chemical physics and spectroscopy to probe the detailed behavior of complex molecules and develop new ways to steer molecular processes using light.
She said the PECASE nomination process began two years ago through her program officer with the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR).
“I was hoping that announcing the backlog of PECASE nominees would make Biden’s To-Do list before he left office,” said Weichman. “I truly can’t believe we slipped in under the wire in his last week in office. It is perhaps the most exciting way this could have played out.
“I am very, very grateful to my group for doing all the hard work behind the scenes to make the science happen, and to the folks at the AFOSR for believing in that science and putting me up for this award,” she added. “It is such a privilege to get to do this job for a living.”
Weichman started her career with the Department in July of 2020, and is affiliated with the Princeton Quantum Initiative and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.
Read the White House announcement of PECASE awards and the full list of awardees here.